Sunday, January 15, 2012

"A lie is as good as the truth if you can get somebody to believe it." So goes the cynical maxim. Naturally, it contradicts the accepted public morality embodied in the saying: "Honesty is the best policy." That saying is attributed to Miguel de Cervantes though it has been repeated by many others. I rather think that the ancient Roman satirist Juvenal had it right when he wrote: "Honesty is praised and starves."

The way to understand these contradictory statements is in the context of evolutionary success. Animals bear deceptive markings and patterns to camouflage themselves from predators. And, animals have been known to act out lies to deceive their fellow animals. William Catton Jr. relates such a story in his book Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse:

One of the chimpanzees at the Gombe Field station provided a modern demonstration of this. He had acquired an ability to open locked banana boxes. But he seemed to know it was unwise for him to do so in the presence of other more socially dominant apes who might attack him and take the bananas. To solve the problem this ape perfected the acted lie. By striding purposefully away from camp as if on his way to a good food source, he tricked other apes who would amble after him for a few hundred yards. By doubling back alone to the then deserted camp, he could open a banana box and peacefully enjoy its contents in the absence of the other chimps who, having seen there was no food in the camp other than what was confined to boxes they could not open, did not return with him.

It's no surprise that humans have also found deception to be a useful survival skill. Certainly, it is useful in hunting animals. Even today we use the duck blind to conceal the position of the hunter. But deception as an adaptive behavior finds its true test in relations between humans in warfare, in sports, and even in commercial activities. We are more likely to deceive those whom we consider part of the out-group since they represent a possible source of resources for the in-group to which we belong and whose survivability we want to enhance. My in-group, however, is constantly shifting. Is it my family? Does it include my friends? How about my community? My nation? Those whom we consider appropriate targets for our cons depend on what group we place ourselves in at any moment.

Does that mean Canadians are getting the truth elsewhere? Well, not lying is not always the equivalent of telling the truth. If you lie, it means by definition that you are saying something you know to be false or at least should have known to be false. But if you are simply mistaken, then people don't call you a liar. They usually try to correct you.

So, there are two kinds of misinformation which we are subjected to every day in human affairs. The first is merely incorrect information. It may very well be the best estimate of the truth by the teller. If we detect the error, we call it an honest mistake. If we don't detect the error, it may have the same effect as a deliberate lie would have on our actions.

For example, it is passed off as more or less incontrovertible that the human economy can grow indefinitely without either running out of resources or destroying the climate. The argument is that high prices for any scarce resource will lead to the discovery of more of that resource or to substitutes for it. All of this will happen in time to avert any catastrophic collapse of human industrial society.

Even among some who accept the reality of climate change, there is a belief that the offending emissions can be brought under control through technology alone, that alternative carbon-free energy sources can be deployed rapidly and in sufficient capacity to replace our current level of energy production from fossil fuels, and that geoengineering projects can be constructed if need be to alter the incoming amount of sunlight or absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. We will thereby save ourselves from civilization-destroying climate change while continuing to live pretty much as we do and with economic growth intact.

People who make these claims are, in my view, simply mistaken about the extent of the challenges. We cannot know for certain whether such people are wrong. But we can judge their chances of being right to be slight based on the evidence. The results of believing such information if it is false can be just as serious as believing intentional falsehoods.

Catton explains in Bottleneck that the purpose of deception is to create a "false or misleading definition of the situation." The ability to deceive depends on two things, the skills of the deceiver and a situation in which the deceiver's words or actions will be interpreted as truthful. The generally rising prosperity of the last 150 years leads most people to conclude that the future will be more or less like the recent past, namely, continued economic growth with few constraints. So, claims of continuous growth fall on fertile ground.

Those who attempt to deceive the population about climate change also have experience as their ally. Catastrophic consequences tied definitively to climate change are difficult to demonstrate. And, most people have not been touched by frequently cited examples: Hurricane Katrina, the record 2010 floods in Pakistan, the shrinking Arctic icecap. Their experience tells them that at most climate change is benign.

The trends revealed by scientific research are far more troubling than the average person's experience. While the scientific community has endeavored mightily to communicate these trends, the task has proven difficult because of the abstract nature of much of the scientific knowledge which must be communicated. This has made it fairly easy for the fossil fuel industry to muddy the waters with misleading and outright false information skillfully planted in major media outlets.

In the past deception may have been an adaptive behavior for the human species. But, as with any trait, changed circumstances can render previously adaptive behaviors maladaptive. The changed circumstance is that humans are now so numerous and so powerful through their technology that they are are able to undermine the very biosphere which supports their survival.

And, since humans coordinate their activities primarily through language, it stands to reason that if that language is now used most effectively to create a false or misleading definition of the actual situation, then the human community will not be able to act appropriately to ensure its continued survival in the face of multiple threats such as climate change, fossil fuel depletion, soil erosion, water pollution and so on. The ability to deceive then has become so counterproductive that it threatens humans with extinction.

Could this trait be somehow moderated to allow a more realistic assessment of our situation? Partly this would require a new definition of who is included in our community. If the definition remains narrow--for example, my climate-change denying friends in the fossil fuel industry--then there is little hope for change. If the definition can expand to all of humanity, then the need for deception is diminished. I no longer consider people halfway across the globe as part of an out-group who can be regarded as enemies and may be deceived without moral concern.

But overcoming deception will also require the inclusion of scientific information and observations not normally incorporated into what most humans call their experience. Of the two tasks I've outlined, this second one seems the more difficult.

It is discouraging to conclude that a human behavior which has been selected for by nature to enhance our survival has now turned against us. But in this way, language--which is perhaps the highest achievement of humankind--could become our undoing.

5 comments:

I found this article - I thought you might be interested:http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/98/peak-nature.html

Peak NatureCapitalism has no soul. Capitalism did away with feudal and pre-feudal myths such as the divine hierarchy between classes of people. In so doing, however, it substituted one heck of a giant myth of its own: Nature. Nature is precisely the lump that pre-exists the capitalist labor process.

One level below the practical implications of this debate is a disturbing conflict for Christians. Said Christ, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." When challenged, "who is my neighbor?", he declared my neighbor is all humanity.Yet, common sense and experience teach that at the survival level, "Honesty is praised and starves." My experience building an intentional community based on a combination of the golden rule and a self-sufficiency work ethic teaches me that with few exceptions, the world functions on the level of base self-interest. People crying out for a return to Christian principles regularly engage in deception that is harmful to others simply because it works. In its most cynical form, the preachers of many organized religions are exposed as the greatest hypocrites, calling for mutual love while plundering the gullible under the cover of religious piety. So, even the advocates of "pure religion" are among the least trusted. Your call for mankind to unite under the banner of enlightened self-interest assumes a confidence in universal enlightenment that is more quixotic than Christ's call to love all mankind equally. In the disinformation age, truth ubiquitously couched in half-truths, smothers any possibility of getting to ultimate truth. As noted, the modern religion called science is equally compromised by special interests. It has come to the point where one must do "primary research" in order to trust the conclusions. Secondary or second-hand science is no longer trusted."And, since humans coordinate their activities primarily through language, it stands to reason that if that language is now used most effectively to create a false or misleading definition of the actual situation, then the human community will not be able to act appropriately to ensure its continued survival in the face of multiple threats … "Infer from this that language is the problem. But the problem goes much deeper than language. Language is but a tool of deception, perhaps, the singular tool in a devil's tool chest that distinguishes humans from lower animals. But your final sentence clarifies, "The ability to deceive then has become so counterproductive that it threatens humans with extinction." This nugget approaches the truth. Language is not the root of the problem. The problem is fundamental morality. To clarify, the root is not the ABILITY to deceive, but deception itself, the common assumption that "Honesty starves" and survival is deception dependent. That takes us back to Christ's call to love ALL others as yourself, not pretense to love others as yourself.The fog of the disinformation war is penetrated by appealing directly to an ultimate source of truth. In science, primary research, done by a competent, meticulous scientist can yield truth to that scientist. Once public, having left the scientist's hands and forced through the sieve of special interests, it becomes suspect. The same can be said of religion. Some still cling to an older notion that the ultimate source of truth is God. As with the newer religion of science, personal revelation (the spiritual equivalent of primary research) is the only sure way to knowledge of the truth.

Continued ...I am hopeful that mankind will come to its collective senses, taking a higher road that leads somewhere other than death and destruction. There seem to be two potential paths leading to salvation. One, universal enlightened self-interest through education, logic and scientific inquiry leading to enlightened choices. The other, embrace Jesus Christ's call to morality, rejecting petty self-interest in favor of the Golden Rule. Ironically, the destination of both paths is enlightened self-interest where people love others AS THEMSELVES. Many believe there is a fork in the road forcing us to choose a mutually exclusive secular or spiritual option. There is no such fork. Truth is truth, whether revealed through either the rigor of scientific or spiritual inquiry. Both paths require rigor. If forced to bet on one path over the other, I bet that the spiritual path has been historically more successful in changing human behavior than the path of universal scientific inquiry. But for me, no such choice is required. In the face of man's power to annihilate himself and evidence that he is well down that path, we must take up Don Quixote's challenge to "dream the impossible dream". But I can't get my head around that dream unless equipped with more than a lance. Mankind must do the right thing not only because it is logically in his selfish interest, but also because it is right and moral. He will get there when armed with truth discovered both through scientific and spiritual inquiry. Thinking such a quest is possible while equipped with only half the tool-chest is worse than quixotic. It is foolish.Full disclosure, I am a Christian and a Mormon with the spirit of Don Quixote.